Thank You So Much to All of You

People have been very sweet and supportive over the last several days — it’s very important for me to remember and acknowledge this. I’ve gotten text messages, emails, and even flowers, and all of these have lifted my spirits and demonstrated to me that people do care and I do make a difference in other people’s lives. It’s easy to forget that, or to persuade myself that it’s not the case. I will thank each of you separately, too, but I wanted to send a big shout out first.

I’m hoping to blog daily over the coming holiday. I have both Thursday and Friday off, and will be traveling with my folks to the mountains in New Mexico. They only have dial-up there, but there are internet cafes, and I have the patience of a spider. So expect to see book reviews, links, and, of course, more grumbling. I am also bringing Volume IV of the Liturgy of the Hours, the new book by Anthony Beevor on D-Day, my shrinky-dinks plastic (with which I make pendants), and my astrology books. Anna, who, along with her sister Mary takes care of my nail and brow needs, gave me her birth data, and I plan to hand-draw a chart for her over the weekend, an enterprise that can take up to 12 hours. It’s the least I can do — she and Mary work seven days a week, and are having trouble getting and staying ahead in this economy. They have tough lives, and I wish I could do more to help.

I found what appears to be an excellent book on anxiety, a sort of companion volume to John McManamy’s book on depression and bipolar disorder. I also found a new handbook on bipolar, and am bringing along one of the dozen or so workbooks intended for us bipolar folk…

…I just spent the last 45 minutes writing intensely about a subject that I’m not sure I’m ready to address publicly, since it means getting specific about some of the meds I take. We’ll see. In the meantime, know that I am so serious when I give my love to all.

Revolt and Resignation

In his collection of essays On Aging, Holocaust survivor Jean Amery said that one must meet the phenomenon of aging -- inevitable yet terrifying -- with both revolt and resignation. So it is with mental illness. To deny that I will always be manic-depressive would be true madness; at the same time, I must revolt against my condition, rejecting the idea that it defines and limits me.